Results wrap
While it was expected from pre-election polls, this was a dismal performance for the major left-wing party, the SPD, to lag in third place behind both the AfD and CDU/CSU. The combined vote share for the three coalition parties (SPD, Greens and FDP) was just 32.3% (down 19.5% on these parties’ combined vote in 2021).
Conservative to far-right parties (the CDU/CSU and AfD) won a combined 49.3% (up 14.8%). If the Left party is grouped with SPD and Greens to form an overall left, they won a combined 36.8% (down 8.5%).
With BSW missing out on parliamentary representation by a hair and FDP by a bit more, 13.9% of votes were cast for parties that didn’t qualify. That meant qualifying parties were boosted in percentage of parliamentary seats won relative to their vote shares. In parliament, the CDU/CSU and AfD won a combined 57% of seats to 43% for the SPD, Greens and Left. The likely governing coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD will have 52% of seats.
Live Commentary
11:55am Those final two seats are in, and BSW has missed out, provisionally winning 4.97%, just short of the 5% threshold. This will give CDU/CSU and SPD a combined 328 of the 630 seats, over the 316 needed for a majority.
11:34am After 297 of 299, BSW has dropped to 4.98%. They will need something from the final two electorates to make it.
11:19am After 290 of 299, the BSW drops back to 4.99%, fractionally below the 5% threshold. So now CDU/CSU and SPD would have a majority.
11:11am After 284 of 299, the BSW has 5.01%!
10:57am After 274 of 299, the BSW is on 5.03%. If that holds, they will win 35 seats, and CDU/CSU plus SPD would only have a combined 309 of the 630 seats, seven short of a majority. In this case, the Greens would also be needed to provide a majority.
10:16am After 234 of 299 electorates, 28.8% CDU/CSU (up 4.3%), 20.7% AfD (up 10.3%), 16.5% SPD (down 9.4%), 11.4% Greens (down 3.0%), 8.7% Left (up 3.9%), 4.9% BSW (new) and 4.3% FDP (down 6.9%). Decision Desk HQ now projects the CDU/CSU will win 211 of the 630 seats, the AfD 151, the SPD 120, the Greens 83, the Left 64 and BSW and the FDP won’t enter parliament. If this is the result, the CDU/CSU plus AfD or CDU/CSU plus SPD will have enough seats for a majority (316 seats).
9:14am After 175 of 299 electorates, the BSW is on 5.01%, just over the 5% threshold, while the FDP remains at 4.1%. So the FDP is likely to lose parliamentary representation while it’s a nailbiter for BSW.
8:51am After 137 of 299 electorates, 29.7% CDU/CSU (up 4.4%), 21.5% AfD (up 10.6%), 15.6% SPD (down 9.3%), 10.9% Greens (down 2.7%), 8.2% Left (up 3.8%), 4.9% BSW (new) and 4.1% FDP (down 6.7%).
7:23am After six of 299 electorates declared, the CDU/CSU has 35.4% (up 4.8% on these seats in 2021), the AfD 25.7% (up 13.0%), the SPD 11.7% (down 9.0%), the Greens 6.6% (down 1.7%), the Left 5.1% (up 2.0%), the BSW 3.9% and the FDP 3.3% (down 6.1%).
6:38am Monday The Guardian’s live blog has exit poll results. The CDU/CSU has 28.6%, the AfD 20.4%, the SPD 16.3%, the Greens 12.3%, the Left 8.5%, the BSW 4.9% and the FDP 4.7%. We will need to wait for results to find out whether BSW and/or the FDP clear the 5% threshold to win seats. The exit polls are close to the pre-election polls.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
I covered today’s German federal election in late December, late January and eight days ago. To qualify for a proportional allocation of the 630 seats, parties must either win at least 5% of the national “party” vote, or win at least three of the 299 single-member electorates, which are elected by first past the post. After there were 735 total MPs in 2021 owing to “overhang” and “leveling” seats, reforms will reduce parliament’s size to 630 MPs.
Polls close at 4am AEDT Monday. Exit polls will be released once polls close. The first official results will take at least a few hours because all votes in an electorate need to be counted before any results for that electorate are officially declared. The final make-up of parliament will probably not be determined until Monday afternoon AEDT.
Opinion polls give the conservative CDU/CSU about 29%, the far-right AfD 21%, the centre-left SPD 15%, the Greens 13%, the Left 7%, the economically left but socially conservative BSW 4.5% and the pro-business FDP 4.5%. The CSU only contests elections in Bavaria, while the CDU contests in all other German states. Like Australia’s Liberal and National parties, the CDU and CSU are usually added together in polls.
The German election website Zweitstimme.org has probabilities for each party entering parliament that factor in both the 5% threshold and winning three electorates. The Left has a 97% chance to enter parliament, BSW 24% and the FDP 14%. If the parties near 5% don’t make it into parliament, seats they would have won are reassigned to parties that clear the threshold. So whether a combination of parties will be enough for a majority (316 seats) may depend on how many parties make it into parliament.
According to Zweitstimme, there’s a 100% chance of the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens winning a combined majority, a 91% majority chance for CDU/CSU and AfD, a 61% chance for CDU/CSU and SPD and a 34% chance for CDU/CSU and Greens. The CDU/CSU has said it won’t form a government with the AfD.
This election will be seven months early owing to a breakdown in the governing coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. Polls have been bleak for left-wing parties generally since July 2023, when the AfD surged ahead of the SPD into second place behind the CDU/CSU. The Left party had looked doomed to lose parliamentary representation after BSW split from it in early 2024, but they have surged above the 5% threshold in recent weeks, while BSW has slid below.
US: Trump’s ratings and 2024 polls’ performance
The FiveThirtyEight aggregate of US national polls gives Donald Trump a +1.5 net approval rating, down from +3.4 eight days ago. Currently, 48.5% approve and 47.0% disapprove of Trump’s performance.
Nate Silver has a detailed review of the 2024 election polls. The polls did better than in most previous presidential elections in terms of error between the polls’ estimates and the election results, but for the third presidential election in a row they understated Trump’s support. After an excellent performance in 2024, AtlasIntel is now Silver’s top-rated pollster, while Selzer went down after blowing its final Iowa poll.
Interesting approach by German’s new Left split Sahra Wagenknecht party:
Kirsdarke
Yes 1930 was the breakout election for the Nazis, going from 2.6% and 12 seats to 18.3% and 107 seats.
That was sort of their fourth election contested, as this was for the AfD – though the latter is over twelve years compared to six in the unstable 1920s.
I suppose the real test will be how the presumed Union/SPD coalition fares in the coming term. Next election it will be interesting to see if AfD’s vote continues to rise, maybe winning a plurality. Hopefully if that happens the 2033 election does not mimic the events of 1932-33.
Geoffrey Epstein
I wasn’t aware of that – though I feel Ms. Wagenknecht has a bit of a ‘controlling’ personality. I will be glad if her party doesn’t get 5% – but having said that I often feel these thresholds (like in NZ) can be a bit unfair.
Say Linke had not had a late surge and was similarly stuck on 4.98%, then they and the party that arose from them would have got about 10% of the vote and zero seats compared to AfD with 20% and 150 seats.
See the votes from 35-44 year olds then – 26% AfD to 24 for the CDU, 13 for Linke-BSW and 13% for SPD. But it’s the young that are horrifying …
https://x.com/tvorreyer/status/1893801445071221220?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1893801445071221220%7Ctwgr%5Ec611ae2c49bbfc5263c1bc467a0eae6b12efe031%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Flive%2F2025%2Ffeb%2F23%2Fgerman-election-live-olaf-scholz-alice-weidel-afd-friedrich-merz-germany-latest-news%3FfilterKeyEvents%3Dfalse
@Rocket Rocket
From what I recall in The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans, the Nazi Party focused on the period from 1930-32 by presenting itself as a respectable option, especially to the Right.
In fact in order to win the March 1932 Presidential Election, Paul von Hindenburg was forced to make an alliance with the centre-left to defeat Hitler, since he was succeeding very well with that.
Now that the AfD has achieved such a large vote, the next part of its strategy will probably be to make Germany ungovernable by anyone except for them.
Looking to the future, the AfD will probably make serious attempts at going after State parliaments. The next one due that they have a shot at is the 2026 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern one where polls have them easily beating the SPD in having the most seats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Mecklenburg-Vorpommern_state_election
Oakeshott Country at 11.20 am, Kirsdarke at 11.47 am
Less than half the vote gain for the CDU/CSU came from the unprecedented drop in SPD support:
https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186
Historically, from 1953 until 1994 the CDU/CSU vote was always above 40%. See fig 1 at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379423001282
Kohl’s scandals in the late 1990s sunk the CDU/CSU vote to 35%, nearly 7% above currently.
The CDU/CSU vote of 28.5% is clearly the second lowest Tory vote since 1949.
The FDP may be finished since Merz will implement as much of their policies as the SPD allow.
While the Greens suffered their worst reversal, they still recorded their second best vote.
Analysis in the article at the first link above shows the historical trend has been for the CDU/CSU to get less educated voters over time. They are now competing with the fascists for the nincompoop vote, also known as the “low information voters”, with men in that group favouring the fascists most.
Because Merz will need only the SPD to form government, the next government will be stable, except for the crisis mentality imposed on Europe by Trump.
It is very unlikely that Merz will resolve any of Germany’s economic problems. In contrast to his bete noir Frau Merkel until 2013, when the Tory vote was still 41.5%, Merz is unlikely to halt the historic decline of the vote for the CDU/CSU. He is most likely to be a one term leader.
@Dr Doolittle at 3:41pm
Cheers for the DW page, it’s very informative, particularly the voter migration section.
AfD’s biggest gains were apparently among those who didn’t vote in 2021, about 2 million.
Kirsdarke @ #55 Monday, February 24th, 2025 – 3:12 pm
Two significant differences with the Weimar Republic.
1. There was no 5% hurdle and in the 1930 election there were 15 parties in parliament making any coalition difficult
2. There was a large Communist party which either refused or was not permitted to be involved in government formation.
A stable coalition will form out of these results but the days of centre right vs centre left are over. Now the centre has to defend against the extremities.
Oakeshott Country @ #59 Monday, February 24th, 2025 – 5:00 pm
Oh yeah, that’s true. Still though, it remains to be seen what happens with BSW in the future, especially with state elections.
While they most likely will have failed on the thinnest of margins at this Federal election, they’re still likely to cross the 5% threshold in East German state elections, assuming they aren’t snuffed out.
Unfortunately for them they’ll have to wait until next year to figure that out, the next state election due is Hamburg next week and that’s about as Progressive West German as one can get.
No comment here regarding the disposition of votes.. it appears the AfD vote is exclusively in the old East Germany.. so we have pro Putin , rabid Left turned rabid right. It appears they aren’t satisfied with sponging of the old West Germany & are after more handouts.
I have a cousin living inBerlin.. she reports that the other Germans are jack of the East Germans & wish they just get lost.
Reports of a crisis in German society & politics are overblown, it’s just those old unreconstructed communists causing a problem blaming migrants for taking jobs they are too disinterested & lazy to fill
@Sceptic at 7:27pm
Wow, when you put it in map form like that, it really does come into sharp focus. And I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way, it actually does.
East Germany really lost out since the 1990 reunification and the consequences 35 years later seem to be playing out.
I think Saxony on 37% was AfD’s highest state result today – no surprises there as its capital is Dresden.
CDU beat them narrowly in the 2024 Saxony state election 31.9% to 30.6% (the same day that AfD got the highest vote in the Thuringia state election.) Saxony’s next election is in 2029- if AfD is still a force then I could see them ‘winning’ a plurality of the vote and maybe even seats, but I would still imagine that like in Thuringia they would not be in government.
Though if I had to bet on the first AfD government I would bet on Saxony.
Kirsdarkesays:
Monday, February 24, 2025 at 7:33 pm
@Sceptic at 7:27pm
Wow, when you put it in map form like that, it really does come into sharp focus. And I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way, it actually does.
East Germany really lost out since the 1990 reunification and the consequences 35 years later seem to be playing out.
=====================================================
The same problem would happen to Canada if they made USA the 11th province. It is best to leave backward people to their own backward country.
Quote: “In the Country of Fools, the Half-Wit is King”
Kirsdarke
I remember post the 2015 Syrian influx seeing a map of all the acts of violence against these Syrians. The number of incidents was far higher in the old East, despite the fact that by far more of the Syrians proportional to population had been resettled in the West.
I almost thought of going to observe the weekly ‘Pegida’ rally around that time in Dresden but spouse convinced me it was not worth the possible risk.
I would imagine there must be many older ‘West Germans’ who would be starting to think a dissolution of the union with the old East, similar to the ‘Velvet Divorce’ in 2002 of Czechia and Slovakia, might not be a bad idea.
Thanks once again sceptic.
As mentioned on the main thread, this looks like the borders of the old East & West Germany.
Fascinating
Sceptic
1. It’s the hard left, Left party that are the old communists, although I don’t doubt there’s some crossover in support between Left Party/BSW/AfD.
2. The map is deceiving, remember Germany is completely proportional even though they elect constituency members. AfD well over doubled their vote share in the West from a lower starting point, whilst adding about 2/3 to 3/4 more in the East, so proportionally less though of course the East is still their strongest suit.
It’s their breakthrough in the West that is really making waves in Germany.
Greens came out of this election so much better than their coalition counterparts, and could well be the party competing for 1st place with AfD at the next election.
Although I don’t care for their energy policies, I do think they are on the money on foreign policy – so different to most Green parties. They’re really a centre-left party in a lot of respects, and probably have less hard left baggage than the SPD membership even though SPD’s leaders have been centre-left and not pro-Russia thankfully.
Adrian – thanks for the coverage / computations.
Adrian – many thanks for the work you do.
Yes thanks Adrian. And thanks William for hosting Adrian’s coverage of these ‘away’ games!
Ps – just one question Adrian (or anyone else clever!) If BSW somehow end on 5.00%, how do the party seat numbers shake out?
Kirsdarke:
The numbers from today would be interesting if repeated at the state election.
AfD 35.0, CDU 16.0, SPD 12.4, Left 12.0, BSW 10.6, Green 5.4.
First up, with AfD getting more than a third of the seats, they’d be able to interfere with parliamentary process in the same way they have been in Thuringia.
Assume AfD isn’t involved in government. Then no three-party coalition gets above about 40%. So you need four parties – something funky like CDU-SPD-Left-BSW or CDU-SPD-Left-Green. A coalition led by the CDU but with a majority of left-wing parties – that’d be a fun mess.
Bird of paradox @ #72 Monday, February 24th, 2025 – 10:41 pm
Oh, crikey, that is worrying. I suppose all that can be done is that the global fascist movement that the AfD has attached itself to will mostly collapse in the next year.
Kirsdarkesays:
Monday, February 24, 2025 at 10:57 pm
Bird of paradox @ #72 Monday, February 24th, 2025 – 10:41 pm
===================================================
I think the global fascist movement which is currently riding the Trump victory wave will likely collapse. As Trump its leader is so mentally unstable and doing monumentally stupid things. The question is does it implode safely or explode in a mushroom cloud scenario?
Bear in mind the SPD got 12.4% federally in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, compared to state polling putting them in the low 20s.
Even that polling is a worry though. If AfD get 30% and parties missing the cut get 10%, seat numbers are fractions of 90%. That would give AfD a blocking minority (30/90 = a third).
I think as they grow, the AfD is getting further from their fascist-like beginnings – much like the National Rally has done in France although AfD is further behind than them in gaining more respectability.
But the huge question/concern is whether they would be far enough from their fascist roots to not be so overtly radical if/when they get into power.
Unlike a number of further right parties, like Reform in the UK, I’m not too sure that AfD are even underpinned by their country’s Christian roots/ethos that can act as a restraining/more humane element within these parties. I just don’t know that AfD come from that background at all, I think it’s more na*i albeit there’s no doubt some decent (but fed up) people caught up in it along the way.
Not sure if that makes sense to anyone. . .
BTSays
I think I know what you mean. AfD really does have different roots to National Rally and their like. Essentially it comes from the feeling of being left behind in East Germany. I think the lack of development in the East from 1945 to 1989 compared to the West left an almost insurmountable gap in expectation when reunification occurred.
I imagine if the North Korean dictatorship collapsed and China didn’t come in to ‘save the day’ and instead South Korea incorporated the old North there would be a not dissimilar problem. North Korea in so many respects now looks like the the ‘old’ South Korea from the Korean War – small villages and agrarian economy, and lack of modern infrastructure for most of the country. Meanwhile South Korea has modernised at an extraordinary rate in comparison. Reunification would see the South pouring money and resources into the North but it would never seem to be enough to the Northerners who, free from their old government’s blanket censorship of all foreign media, would suddenly see that the South was not some ‘hell on Earth’ as the Kims had been telling them for 70 plus years, but in fact quite a nice place in comparison.
I don’t know what the answer is – lots of ‘West’ Germans get frustrated by the demands of the ‘East’. On a different continent I know there are many Anglo-Canadians who got sick of Quebec’s demands for independence or semi-autonomy and basically eventually said “Let them go, we are sick of all the drama”.
It is a little simply to say that AfD is an East German issue; They got above 10% in every state. But it is certainly more of an issue in East (except for Berlin which as one German told me Berlin is not really Germany at all). The voter turnout was also lower in the east than in the West.
Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt are likely to end up with AfD governments at some point unless there is a united effort by the rest of the political establishment. The former two had elections last year and did managed to cobble together strange government combos to keep the AfD out. Saxony-Anhalt goes to the polls next year.
The combined vote of the anti-establishment Die Linke, BSW and AfD was almost 2/3 in Thuringia. That is ungovernable territory.
I don’t know much about the German electoral process other than the 5% rule but what would happen if the AfD won 30% next election and first place, but all other parties continued the firewall and refused to form government with them? Would that be likely?
If BSW gets over 5% they get 35 seats which is taken from all other parties that are currently over the threshold. That causes the combined CDU/CSU and SPD seat share to fall below a majority, and means they would also need the Greens to form a government.
evads @ #79 Tuesday, February 25th, 2025 – 12:28 pm
They would, but like the Nazis in the last years of the Weimar government, it would be unsustainable politically and eventually one of the major parties will break (most likely Union) and think they can make a deal with them.
It’s happening in the UK at this moment, the Conservatives seem to be teetering on the edge on making a deal with Farage’s Reform Party going into the next election.
Kirsdarke
Looking at polling in the UK I don’t think Farage and Reform will make any pact with the Conservatives any time soon. The polls remind me a bit of 2014 when Labour/Tories/LDP/UKIP were all on 20-25% for a while (until Cameron offered up a Brexit referendum in a panic to win back UKIP voters – to win an election but lose something bigger – “Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. but for Wales!”).
Reform will understandably think in this sort of environment if they can get the lead as top party they may be able to attract Tory voters to vote ‘tactically’ to get rid of Labour. Labour won a massive landslide last year with 33.7% of the vote – if Reform get 30-35% I am starting to think it really is possible for them to win on their own.
So they could beat AfD to the punch, and even if Marine Le Pen wins the French Presidency she would be unlikely to have a Parliament majority behind her.
It’s all a long way away of course, but I think that would make Reform all the more reluctant to commit to any deal with the Tories until they see the lay of the land in the lead up to the next election.
@Rocket Rocket,
That’s true, it’s just I’ve been listening in to LBC and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t appear to be doing very well as Conservative leader, plus the “dries” of the Conservative party are talking of an alliance with Farage as something they should look into doing.
Thankfully the next UK election isn’t due until 2029, so there’s still a lot of time for things to play out.
Kirsdarke
I have no doubt the Tories want to make a deal with Reform – after all Farage ‘standing down’ and not running candidates in most seats in 2019 was hugely beneficial to the Tories.
But I think the landscape has changed so much now that Farage really does see a path to the Prime Ministership – something I wouldn’t have thought possible even a year ago. So he will reject any Tory advances – and if such advances became publicly known it could make the Tories look really desperate and help Farage and Reform even more.
The next election could see a big realignment with the Tories not getting in the top two for I presume what would be the first time in history.
It is hard to believe the Tories could disappear as a force but looking at Europe there have been similar seismic shifts in other countries relegating some famous and successful political parties to also-ran status.
I used to think the betting markets that had Farage as favourite or second favourite to be next UK PM were perhaps being manipulated by a few wealthy punters, but maybe they really do reflect this new reality.
@Rocket Rocket
Yeah, it is pretty scary that Farage really does have a path ahead to actually becoming PM at the moment. At this moment it would probably happen as a Reform Minority government with the Conservatives as the Junior Coalition party, since there’s just too many “old money” Tory electorates that won’t vote any other way, but Reform-Tories could win a majority of seats together.
With that said, if Starmer wants to prevent this from happening, he needs to start reading the room and do things that make the electorate happy. It would be absolutely pathetic if he squanders this term with such a big majority and effectively does nothing that can’t be instantly unraveled if he loses.
Anyways, with the German election over, that makes the next significant European elections on the calendar be Romania and Poland, due in May, most likely around the same time as the Australian election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Romanian_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Polish_presidential_election
I’m not sure what to make of the Romanian election, but so far it looks like the centrist Civic Coalition in Poland is leading over the right wing PiS.
UK
As I live here, a couple of observations. Mostly the posts above are perfectly sensible, however.
1. Reform demonstrate bravado, but actually want to do a deal with Conservatives more than the other way round, although both parties are divided on the matter. As someone said, there is plenty of time to work this out and conversations will no doubt get more serious after the council elections in May.
2. A deal is feasible where Reform don’t stand in seats where Lib Dems are the main challengers or where they otherwise have not much chance due to the demographics; and where Tories don’t stand in ‘old Labour’ seats that really don’t like the Tories even in years like 2019 when Boris got an 80-seat majority.
Previously this kind of deal would have lost both parties as much as they gained, from voters disliking the association with the ‘other’ party, but faced with the reality of an already discredited Labour government people are more likely to just grumble and still vote for whichever of the 2 parties is standing against Labour.
3. Tories currently have 121 MPs, Reform 5. Tories would also contain considerable governing experience which might be attractive to Reform depending just how revolutionary they’d like to be.
4. Reform no doubt contain some loonies, but really are seen as more mainstream then AfD and the like. It is known that Trump and Farage go back a while, and if USA’s economy prospers under Trump you can expect this to boost Reform further by association. They attract similar types of ‘fed up’ voters, although Evangelical Christian political prowess is far weaker everywhere outside of the USA.
5. A recent bona fide poll showed that if Boris were to return to the helm of the Tories then they would recoup a substantial chunk of Reform voters, who incidentally are divided on Boris: 1/2 like his outsider appeal and optimism, the other half of Reform believe he’s a betrayer who in fact was the most left-wing Tory PM in practice and an eco-warrior. Kind of highlights that you can’t put Boris in a box, which is why he is still (incorrectly) written off / undersestimated by his political opponents even now, who seem to think ‘Partygate’ and his exit as PM has finished him.
6. For reasons I don’t understand, as there’s nothing specific that’s triggered it, Lib Dems are going up in the polls now as well, jumped to 16% in a couple.
7. GB News have been a very important factor in the rise of Reform.
8. It’s very early days in this Labour government. Mostly voters vote based on perceptions of the economy – if this booms relatively speaking in the next couple of years because/in spite of Labour, then they may be back in majority status regardless of any Tory-Reform pacts.